


our human frailties

by notyourleo



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Adult Canon Characters, Alzheimer's Disease, Gen, May/December Romance???, POV Original Character, Reincarnation, maybe not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-20
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-02 03:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notyourleo/pseuds/notyourleo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Leo Valdez wasn't the only one broken."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. chapter 1

Normal – Interviewee | _Italics – Interviewer_ | **Bold - Question** | (Parenthesis – Offscreen dialogues/activities)

* * *

**our human frailties**

* * *

_("Ah, yes, the recorder is working now. Thanks, Liz. Anyways...")_

_**Thank you very much for taking your time for this interview. You wouldn't mind telling your name, interviewee?** _

Elizabeth Booker.

**_Good afternoon, Ms. Booker. You are aware why I'm doing this interview?_ **

Only a bit.

**_I am a researcher and historian currently collecting data, information, and stories about the prophetical seven after the war against the Giants. You can say I write their biographies. You are here to tell me about Leo Valdez's life between his time after the war and before he loses his battle with Alzheimer's. Is that correct?_ **

That's true.

**_Then let us begin. Please tell me, what was your life before meeting Leo Valdez?_ **

I lived an uninteresting life, Mr. Jackson, because I think you've heard the same story, over and over again when it came to people.

**_Everyone's stories are unique. They just need the right audience, to whom you can tell the story to. I don't think yours is less interesting. I was raised differently, Ms. Booker._ **

Differently, how?

**_(laughs) You're the one being interviewed here, Ms. Booker._ **

(laughs) Sorry. I'll ask about your life later.

**_Alright. Please, continue._ **

I'm the only child in my family. My father died when I was very little, and my mother and I were left very poor. When I was old enough, twelve years old, we both worked odd jobs. I didn't go to school until I was fourteen. My mother was the one who taught me to read and write when I was young, and I love her very much.

When I went to school for the first time, all my classmates were scared of me. They didn't know what to think of a middle school aged student to be in their herd. I was excluded from most of their games, their groups, their pranks, et cetera. But I didn't mind at all, I could understand what they were feeling. I was like a grown-up supervising them secretly. They were afraid I would tell the teachers or adults on them, if they did anything what they think—or I think—was wrong.

I jumped through year levels, though. For a month, I'd be in first grade, and then the next month, I'd be in second grade. I had really high grades. But upon entering high school, my grades went down when I started having interests in life. I loved History and read books about pretty much everything related to it. I was fascinated about the world, and how it came to be, how it evolved into today.

My mother didn't mind my grades going down, as long as I looked descent enough to go to college. She was happy that there was something that won't kill me that will probably keep me busy for the rest of my life.

Only five years ago, I graduated to a high school, when I hit eighteen, like a normal teenager. At that time, my mother got married to a guy she met at work, my stepfather. Later on, she was pregnant with my baby brother.

**_When did you first hear about Leo Valdez?_ **

The day I heard that my mother was pregnant was also the day I first heard about Leo Valdez. My family had earned enough money for me to last in college for two years. My stepfather found an apartment complex near the college that I could lodge in. Said he would pay the rent for the first four months, but I was on my own after that, though he told me if I was broke he'd cover me again.

I moved into my new apartment that day. The window had a nice view of the building's backyard garden, with all kind of flowers. But I noticed that there were dark scorch marks in some patches, like someone had made irresponsible bonfires recently.

The landlady had brought me down to the benefits and the basic rules of the complex. Free breakfast every morning was one benefit, but we were not allowed to go to the top floor of the complex without permission, if we didn't want to get kicked out of our apartment.

I asked what was on the top floor, and she only said someone was living there, and it might be dangerous to approach him if he didn't know me. The man had Alzheimer's, in a bad stage, so if he knew me in the past or not, I might risk getting hurt because he was said to be a violent man in the past.

**_Violent in what way?_ **

("Oh yes, coffee please, with two muffins.")

_("Just coffee for me, thank you.")_

The landlady said that he was a soldier in gruesome wars. He occasionally reminisced his past, and he thought it was the present, so he acted upon it. Since I love world history and read every book that tackled about it, I asked which wars he had fought. The landlady has no answer for this, but she said that there were numerous secret wars, that even she knew nothing about. Wars that were kept secret from the media, from the public, from the people.

I asked her if these wars were meant to be _secret_ , how come she knew he was a soldier in one?

The question caught her off-guard. She replied that he acted upon his memories. It was a speculation, but from the way he spoke in his act, he was a war veteran.

I wanted to ask more questions, why she sounded so sure, but she replied dismissively. "His caretakers told me, lady."

**_She sounded like she's hiding something._ **

If she was hiding something to me, then I didn't know she was and I didn't know what she was hiding.

**_But did Leo Valdez share them to you, eventually? His stories about the wars?_ **

Only bits of it. We'll get to that later. Judging from his friends and the conversations they had exchanged, I knew that there was a lot more he didn't tell me. I wish he didn't have Alzheimer's.

**_Tell me about your first meeting with Leo Valdez._ **

It was only a week after I moved in. I was coming home from college—from work, actually, when I saw him in the gardens.

He was a man around his fifties, with a dark and oily complexion, curly hair, thick stubble, and dark bags under his eyes. His overalls were dirty with grease and soil. He was sitting on the ground, pieces of machinery scattered around him, like a kid in a playpen. The grass around him was black.

He didn't catch my attention for long, but I was interested in what was in his hands. He was tinkering something, bending small pipe cleaners and taping it together with scotch tape and rubber band. When he looked satisfied with his work, he spun the blades and threw it up. The toy he made was impressive; it was a mini helicopter gliding up above his head. He congratulated himself by patting his own shoulder.

The helicopter started gliding down to him, but it swerved away in a sudden gust of wind, landing near my foot. He stood up and jogged to get it. But he stopped near the fence, where the garden was protected from intruders, and saw me, his eyes widening. In astonishment. In recognition. I couldn't place it.

I took the helicopter to the ground and held it in my hands carefully. He was stunned in his place, so I walked to the fence and gave it to him. He took it from me without taking his eyes off me. I got a little scared. I mumbled an excuse and went inside the building, walking faster than usual.

Shortly after that, the landlady found the man on the garden. I watched from the window of my apartment. She brought a few men with her, and scolded him for burning a patch of the garden again and making messes. The man looked like he wanted to throw a tantrum, but he only bowed his head and walked back inside sulkily. The landlady was sort of surprised. She had told me that he always became loud and protested a lot when being told.

The landlady saw this as a miracle. A slow recovery.

(Sounds of clinking cups and plates.)

**_Did he have any other unusual activities after that? "Miracles?"_ **

I'm actually getting to that part. At the beginning, Leo didn't sit with us in our breakfast table at the apartment lounge. Until I met him personally that day, if you may call it so. He always ate alone in his room. One of the neighbors would bring the food to him. But the next day, he somehow stumbled down to the stairs all by himself in his pajamas and appeared in the doorway.

The landlady, freaked out again, ushered him to go back to his room, since his food was still being prepared.

Leo shook his head. "Can I eat here?"

This somehow stunned the people in the room. Everyone stared at Leo, and he only looked at them, scratching his head. "Can I?"

"O-of course!" Our landlady stuttered, standing up from her seat. "Come here, sweetie, come. Sit here, I'll-I'll get your food from the kitchen." She disappeared in the kitchen doorway. Leo sat gingerly in the landlady's seat. He tapped his fingers on the table, swaying a bit. Some still watched him, while others continued to eat. Two or three left to go back to the rooms or work.

I was finished with my breakfast then. I stood up and grabbed my bag for school. He glanced at my direction. Then he smiled and waved at me. Everyone in the room was silenced by this. I didn't know what to do. I was a bit scared, because he was still a stranger, partly because of the things the landlady told me about his condition. But I waved back, and walked away.

Later that day, the landlady told me that Leo never spoke ever since he came to live in the apartment. He never smiled, or he never showed signs of positive interaction with any of the tenants.

**_Who brought him to the apartment complex? Since he was a person with a mental disability, he should be in a...facility, where he would be cared for twenty-four by seven, if he didn't have any relatives or friends to look out for him..._ **

Leo hated hospices. He hated them with a burning passion. But his friends were the ones who looked out for him. Not me. Them.

And it was sort of a good thing that Leo didn't like facilities, because his friends were his only family now, and they didn't...want to let go of him yet. But they said Leo preferred to be alone, and it hit them harder than they imagined. That was why they gave him an apartment of his own, and they paid for his expenses and care, told the landlady to phone them if there was anything up. His friends would call three or four times a week to check up on him. And on weekends one of them would visit Leo.

With Leo active around the building, the landlady called his friends about his development, and the next day they appeared in the lounge.

**_Can you describe who these friends were, when you first saw them?_ **

Leo's friends were a man and a woman, nearing their fifties as well. The man was white, with blond hair combed back neatly, and wore a nice coat suit, that he almost looked like Draco Malfoy from the first two Harry Potter films, only in his old man form. The lady with him was beautiful. She was dark-skinned, with...golden eyes. She wore a brown winter coat dress with a purple scarf wrapped around her neck, her brown curly hair resting on her shoulders.

**_Did it happen that they noticed you as well?_ **

It was a weekend when they came in, so I was in my apartment, cleaning up and studying most of the time they were in the building. When I got out of the room for lunch, they were walking down the stairs with the landlady.

I caught their conversation mid-sentence. "...yes, and not only that, he has shown interests in one of our people in here."

"And who could that be?" The man asked her.

The landlady stopped on my floor and waved her hand to my door without looking away from the guests. "The young lady who lives in this apartment."

All eyes turned to my apartment, but then they found me on the doorway, so their gaze rested on me instead. And there was it again. The way the two visitors looked at me, it was the same way Leo looked at me for the first time.

"Jason..." The woman said quietly, grabbing his arm.

The man only shook his head. "No, no, not right now..."

Both of them smiled—warily—at me before they continued walking down. I thought they were going to join us for lunch, but they were gone by the time I was in the lounge.

**_I must say, I'm very...impressed, that you can recall all these events vividly, even if they happened five years ago._ **

(A mug is placed down on the table.) We are both historians at heart, Mr. Jackson. And those seven months I really just couldn't forget.

**_Did you meet them again?_ **

The next day, I did. I was supposed to go out and see my mother, who was living in the next city with her husband. The landlady, at seeing me in the staircase, quickly pulled me to the dinner table and told me to wait, because I would have two visitors any minute now, and if it wouldn't bother me I had to wait for them.

For a moment, I thought it would be my mom and step-dad. Because, really, who else knew that I was living there? But a few minutes later, the man and woman from the day before came and the landlady led them to the visitor's lounge where I was waiting for them. I stood up when they walked to me and they shook my hand. We said our hellos and sat down together.

"My name's Jason Grace," the man greeted. "And this is Hazel Levesque." The woman smiled and bowed her head to me.

The landlady came back to us with a tray of coffee and sandwiches. "Leo still sleeping upstairs." She placed the tray on the coffee table. "But he might wake up any time now. I check on him every hour."

"We should've put Leo to the ground level." Ms. Levesque took a cup of coffee and drank it. "We really don't want anyone to climb up so many steps up to the top floor."

"Oh, but he loves it upstairs." The landlady waved her hand. "Really. He likes the view. Well, I should go prepare his breakfast. Mr. Valdez's, I mean. Call me if there's anything." She left us alone and disappeared in the kitchen.

There were a few minutes of awkward silence between us, before Ms. Levesque spoke. "I'm sorry if we're interrupting any plans you have for today. But we won't take too long, we promise."

I told them it was fine. Ms. Levesque continued. "We wanted to talk to you about...about Mr. Valdez, who lives upstairs. I think you might have met him, correct?"

I just nodded.

"Right." Ms. Levesque looked nervous. "Do you...do you talk to him? Or, do anything with him? Stuff?"

I told them, no, I never interacted with Leo until a few days ago, and we barely spoke then.

Mr. Grace and Ms. Levesque looked at each other. "I see," Ms. Levesque said. "Well...we would like to ask you...a favor. Err, a request, maybe. We can pay you, if that's what you want."

At that time, I was in need of money to pay the rent, food, and miscellaneous fees in college, so I said sure, but I didn't tell them I needed the money.

Ms. Levesque leaned closer. "We want you to...to talk to Mr. Valdez. You know, interact with him. Ask him about his favorite things. Just...maybe, hang out with him."

"He has Alzheimer's," Mr. Grace spoke. "We both know he doesn't have much time now...but it looks like he's slowly recovering for...some reason..." I had noticed that the man kept his eyes on me ever since he and the lady came in, but he spoke up only now. It made me feel very self-conscious.

"And we both think you can help him back to recovery," Ms. Levesque finished.

That was it. They just asked me to talk to Leo often, and I'd get paid. But I considered what kind of man Leo was to the people who told me; a violent, unstable man during his bad days, mild in the good. But when I saw him personally those two times, he wasn't what my landlady or the others told him to be. I could tell he was smart; he built a toy helicopter with just pipe cleaners. Maybe even sweet, the way he smiled and waved at me when I was going to school.

But I couldn't be the judge yet, since I barely knew him personally. This was the perfect opportunity to learn more about him, so I said yes, I'll do it for them.

**_Where you nervous when you're tasked to do this?_ **

Very. But curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know who Leo Valdez was.

But I have to admit, I was scared.

_**When did you start interacting with Leo Valdez?** _

Not long after Mr. Grace and Ms. Levesque visited me. I had a day off from college, and I was catching up with the workload, and I was looking for a part-time job through the internet. The landlady knocked on my door, and entered holding a tray of oatmeal and orange juice. She asked me to bring the tray up to Leo's room and when he's done with his breakfast, to take it back with his basket of dirty laundry.

Mr. Grace and Mrs. Levesque probably had told her about my role in taking care of Leo.

**_So you were free to go to Leo Valdez's apartment any time you wanted?_ **

Of course not. I still had to ask permission from the landlady if I went upstairs, since the complex's rule still applied to me. If I went up there and Leo was having a bad day, who knows what would have happen to me? Would they ever know that I was in trouble?

**_But you don't sound like Leo had a single bad day._ **

...No. He never did. Not after he met me.

**_What did you feel when you first climbed to the top floor of the building?_ **

Scared. Excited. I don't know. But I was climbing up the stairs slowly, shaking, and the food tray rattling even as I handled it carefully. The landlady accompanied me, holding my arm.

The top floor of the building only has one door. The landlady knocked on that door and called out Leo's name. She waited for a few seconds before taking out a key from her pockets and unlocked the door.

Inside was complete chaos. There were scraps everywhere; scraps on tables, scraps overflowing boxes, and littered on the floor. Dirty, greasy clothes were hanging on the clothesline, which was connected to all four walls of the room. Shelves were filled of photograph books and toys made out of the scraps around him; I found them charming and pretty in the middle of the chaos.

I thought this was his normal environment until the landlady shrieked in dismay. "How on earth!" she exclaimed. "His room was clean last night! How—"

Blankets were thrown away from the bed, revealing Leo's thin figure sitting up on the mattress. We both noticed that the blankets and his pillows were burned.

He didn't say anything to the landlady but he grinned up to her. Despite the sunny disposition he was showing, the landlady scolded him, and asked what he had done. His smile dropped, and didn't say anything. Our landlady sighed, told him to go and clean himself up, and then she turned to me, told me to put down his breakfast and help her clean up.

I was gathering his laundry and placing them in an empty hamper when he came back to his room, in a simple tee and shorts. It was the first time that I saw him looking neat, save for the comb that was stuck in his hair.

The landlady and I picked up the scraps from the floor and placed them inside empty boxes around the apartment. Then she told me to stay here and watch him. She gave me a buzzer, like those in hospitals. If there was anything wrong with Leo, I push the button.

**_Were you uncomfortable around him?_ **

In the first three times I was around him personally, yes. And this was the last time I felt uneasy. I watched him eat his breakfast while I moved the boxes to a corner. There was this awkward silence between us when we were both done with what we were doing. Leo sat on his bed, staring at his bowl and glass, his fingers making more curls in his hair. He mumbled under his breath and rocked his body back and forth.

I found myself looking at the toys he made, thinking of a way to break the ice between us. "So umm...Mr. Valdez..."

"Leo."

I turned to him.

He grinned at me. "Call me Leo."

**_In what stage of Alzheimer's was he in when you talked to him?_ **

Everyone told me that he was in the late stage. The landlady said he only had a few months left.

**_Do you really believe that you were the key to his recovery?_ **

His friends believed that I was the _only_ key to his recovery, their "last hope". The only way to bring back the old Leo, maybe even curing his Alzheimer's.

Unfortunately, it never worked. And here I am.

**_Did you set up a daily schedule, or a cycle, to make sure you stay acquainted with Valdez?_ **

Every morning, before going to school or work, I would bring his breakfast up to his room, and have some small talk, like, "good sleep?" "do you like the weather today?". He barely talked at first; his responses were just a nod or a shake of the head, but slowly he started saying yes and no. Then his replies became more elaborate. His choice of words were simple, and very often he'd ask me a word that fell from his head, everyday words he had forgotten.

And like his responses, my questions became detailed, but I was very careful not to ask anything personal.

On weekends, when I was not too busy—which was _very rare—_ I would come either come to Leo's apartment or to the gardens to watch him work with the scraps. I'd ask him a question once in a while, but he seemed to be content not being disturbed when working, but at the same time he enjoyed my company. I knew because he admitted it to me once.

Ms. Levesque and Ms. Grace came every weekend. They'd ask the landlady of Leo's condition, and how I was holding up. Sometimes they watched Leo and I when we were both in the gardens. The pay was small, but I was secretly grateful for it, because, you know, _money_.

Our landlady told me that it had never been so quiet in the residence before.

Those months with him were...peculiar. He wasn't open to me, at first. But he warmed up, and I couldn't help it; I grew attached to him, and started feeling guilty when I accept payments from his friends.

Every two weeks though, he would forget about me. He would forget about anything that happened two weeks before. Sometimes the things he did yesterday, a year ago, or just twenty minutes ago. He'd forget about everyone he met in the apartment, including the landlady and his friends. And every time he'd forget me, I had to reintroduce myself. I told him I was a friend of his, and I was also taking care of him.

Every time he "first" met me, he'd call me nickname variations of my real name. Primarily, he'd stick with my given nickname Liz, but sometimes he'd come up with Liza, Ellie, Beth, Lizzie, etc. and called me any of those until he forgot again.

And whenever he first looked at me, I kept seeing it; this...recognition that was on his face, registering in his mind.

This went on for four months until the day Leo confessed something to me.

**_Confessed something?_ **

One day, I went up to his room for our regular routine. I brought with me his breakfast and my unfinished schoolwork. He ate slowly while I worked. When he was finished, he moved closer to me. "Ellie?" he said. That was what he called me that time. "Ellie...can I tell you a secret?"

I moved to him. He looked afraid. I assured him that his secret was safe with me.

"You'll think I'm crazy, like what other people said to me."

I told him I wouldn't think anything like that, I'd never think of him crazy. I didn't care about what other people said.

His face was grim. He looked twenty years older when a shadow passed through his expression. "I keep having bad dreams. Really bad dreams, but they seem so real. There were so many people there. And...and you were there, Ellie. N-no..."

He looked confused for a moment, like something else passed through his mind, but he couldn't dig it out. I told Leo that bad dreams don't make people crazy. But he shook his head frantically, and took my hands in his. I was alarmed for a moment, because it was sudden, and I was scared he was going to do something to me. But he was just holding my hands for reassurance.

"I see monsters, Ellie." His croaked. "Monsters all around me."

**_You imply that you didn't see the same things as Valdez did._ **

I didn't.

**_So you're not clear-sighted?_ **

Isn't that what they're called? Clear-sighted mortals, right? Then no. I didn't believe him at first, thinking it was his Alzheimer's. But eventually I believed him. He was seeing things that I couldn't see.

**_So what happened?_ **

The week after he told me that he could see monsters, Leo showed amazing progress. He started speaking to people when they talked to him, regardless of his limited vocabulary. Occasionally he would ask me what word he was looking for. He dressed plainly, but if he tried to overdress, his briefs would be over his pants, or he'd mistake his shorts as a hat, or he'd put a sweater over his overalls. But he acted decent, and we saw this as an improvement.

But he became more forgetful about everything else. Like I said, he would forget about me and the people he saw every day. Most of all, he saw his friends as total strangers whenever they visited him every weekend. Mr. Grace and Ms. Levesque seldom talked to him, only watched him from afar. And even if they did talk, they had to introduce themselves anew every time. I could see in their faces that it was difficult for them. Leo only looked neutral at them, no recognition whatsoever.

But I'm sidetracking, sorry. The week after he talked to me, I met Ms. Levesque on the way down to the lounge to get Leo's breakfast. She was holding a big brown paper bag. When she saw me, she smiled and gestured to come over to her.

"How's Leo doing?" She said.

"He's doing okay," I said. "He's been staring at the window most of his time, lately."

"Does the landlady let Leo go out for a walk?" she asked. "Also, here. This is for him." She handed me the paper bag.

I took it from her. "No, not exactly. Only in the gardens, but never a walk."

"Maybe you could take him out later?" We both went into the kitchens and Ms. Levesque took Leo's breakfast tray that was waiting for me to be picked up.

While climbing the stairs, Ms. Levesque asked me questions about myself. What university I was attending, what college course I was taking, about my family, and my unborn little brother. I admitted to her that ever since I was hanging out with Leo, my grades were going down and I was buried in debt, but I didn't blame her. I was grateful for helping them and Leo.

But Ms. Levesque looked guilty. "Maybe you should take a few days off, Liz. You don't have to do this everyday. You need to catch up with college and studies."

I couldn't decide. I really needed to catch up with work and all, but at the same time I wanted to watch over Leo. But I wasn't his guardian angel. I thought Leo would understand if I said I wouldn't see him for a few days.

We entered Leo's room, and found him sitting on the floor, photograph books scattered around him. When he saw us, he jumped, and shut the book he was looking at, almost flinging it across the room. He stood and practically kicked the photo books under his bed. "Oh, it's just you, Beth." He said to me. She looked at Ms. Levesque. "Who is she?"

"Leo, this is Hazel Levesque." I gestured to my companion. "She pays for your rent and food and care here." Ms. Levesque looked like she was fighting the urge to bite her lip, but instead smiled to him and offered a hand to shake. Leo stared at her for a few seconds, glancing at the photo books under his bed, before taking her hand to shake it. Ms. Levesque placed his tray on the table, told me that she had to go now, and said goodbye to us.

I placed the paper bag on the table besides Leo's breakfast, and opened it. It was few more scraps for Leo to play with. He peeked behind my shoulder, and said, "You got this for me, Beth? Thanks!" Before I could say anything, he took the paper bag from me and started taking out the things in it, happy as a kid with Christmas presents.

**_You didn't tell him that almost all the things for him were from Ms. Levesque and Mr. Grace?_ **

I never had a chance to tell him, and I felt really guilty for it.

**_Did you take Valdez out eventually?_ **

I did, right after he ate his breakfast. I prompted him to change into neater clothes. The landlady was skeptical of me taking him out for a walk, but eventually she consented.

Leo took time getting used to the new environment around him. He loved watching cars and trucks on the road, and when birds flew above him, he would stare at them until they were gone from his sight.

But he showed...odd behavior. He glared at every pedestrian that passed by us, always grabbing my arm and gripping it tightly until blood stopped flowing inside. He growled at people who stared at us. Ever since I was told about Leo Valdez, I was scared once again.

**_Maybe it was just his paranoia._ **

Maybe. Then again, he was seeing things I wasn't seeing.

**_I see. Well, please continue._ **

I took Leo to the shopping districts. He got fond of this cafe we are in, Mr. Jackson. We ordered two pieces of cake—my treat—and ate quietly. We watched people come and go inside the shop. Too bad I only took him out once. Sometime later, after we finished our cakes, Leo spoke to me. "My memories are scattered around my brain, Liz," he whispered to me. "I'm afraid of forgetting. But I know I'm losing my memories. I don't want to be empty."

I didn't say anything.

"So I was looking at this photo books, and trying to remember." He stirred at his mug of hot chocolate milk. "The woman you brought to my room...she was in one of the books, only younger. She's with me in so many photos. But I can't remember her. And...you...you..." he faltered, looking down to his beverage.

I still wouldn't say anything. What could I do? He'd forget he had this conversation with me soon. But this was something I could tell Ms. Levesque about. She'd be happy that Leo thought of her, even if it was something trivial.

I told Leo I would not be with him for a few weeks, because I needed to catch up with school and work. He was reluctant to say okay.

We walked around until it was getting dark. He was eager to see everything, but I worried that it was too tiring for him. "We should go back home," I said to him. He agreed with me. We didn't talk in our walk back to the apartment complex. Leo looked exhausted, and I held his arm so he could walk with balance.

**_This has been a question that I've been wanting to ask, but I kept holding it back for the sake of chronology in your story and the interview but...what prompted Leo Valdez to...remember? It sounded like from the moment you first looked at each other, something in Leo's mind was triggered._ **

You're a researcher of the prophetical seven, correct? Then, by just _looking_ at me, I think you, too, know fairly well what triggered Leo to remember. Even his friends recognized my face, which was why they reacted similar to Leo.

**_...Yes...when I first saw you here waiting for me, I thought you were...but how..._ **

I guess I'll make it quick for you.

After our walk with Leo, I barely saw the old guy around. I felt really bad for leaving him alone, but I needed to think about my college debts. I didn't want to ask my stepfather for money, no, I wanted to prove that I was independent enough. I worked multiple part-time jobs, day and night, when I had no classes.

I met a friend at work, who was also in my college. She was loud, but really friendly and nice. We got along quite well, even though we had opposite personalities. I talked to her about Leo once or twice. She was a good listener, but she was curious to meet Leo, with all the details I filled her. On a weekend she visited me so we could both study for the finals. I glanced once a while at the window, watching Leo down at the gardens, tinkering with his scraps. The grass he sat on was black again.

Someone knocked on my door, and the landlady's face appeared. "Sorry, dear, I know you're busy there," she said. "But I have a favor to ask. Mr. Valdez made a mess in his room again. Could you go and clean up? I have too much in my hands, unfortunately, so I can't help."

I glanced at the window. Down at the gardens, Leo threw his scraps to the air in agitation.

"Okay," I said to the landlady, putting down my books and standing up from my chair. "I'll go right away."

"Hey, can I come?" my friend said, standing up, too. "I want to see his apartment."

We both walked up to his room. His whole apartment was messier than the last time. The toys and photo books from the shelves were on the floor. His bed sheets were used as curtains for the windows. His mattress was on the ground, surrounded by heaps of scraps and boxes.

"It looked like he messed his room up intentionally," my friend said, walking carefully through the debris. We began picking up the mess and putting them back. I told her where everything went while taking down the sheets from the window and folding them. She picked up one of the photo books on the floor and started sifting through it. "Hey, Liz, check it out."

We sat down on the mattress on the floor and looked at the photo album. I never knew I wanted to look at Leo's pictures until that moment. I was so busy with everything else that it never crossed my mind. My friend turned the pages, glancing at the photos of a teenaged Leo Valdez with a bunch of friends. Then we stopped at one of the pictures. There were only two people there. One was Leo, around fifteen or sixteen. He had the same twinkle in his eyes I knew and he was making a peace sign in one hand, and his other arm around the shoulder of a girl of the same age. And the girl, she had choppy brown hair and brown-colored skin, but she was...beautiful, and her eyes were colorful.

There was a lump in my throat when I stared at the girl in the picture. My friend was the first one to speak.

"Holy shit, Liz, she looks _exactly_ like you."


	2. chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "A few days later, he was starting to forget the names of his friends, the countries he had traveled with us, the places where he grew up, and even his own mother's name. It was then, we realized too late, he was burning his own brain cells."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, like, this chapter is unbeta-ed, so there's going to be a lot of flaws there, okay?? okay.

**_How did you feel about this?_ **

I didn't know what I felt. There was too much going on in my mind, so many feelings that I couldn't place. I knew I felt anger, that was for sure. Mr. Valdez befriended me because I looked like the woman in the picture. He thought of me as this person in the picture, and not for who I am. I was not Liz Booker, I was _Piper McLean_ to him.

**_So this discovery had somehow changed the way you originally perceived Leo Valdez?_ **

Somehow, yes. The revelation didn't sink to me fast in the next few weeks. I tried to avoid Leo, but I still do my morning ritual sometimes. He complained that I wasn't seeing him anymore, and he missed me a lot lately. I lost the will to speak to him, to ask questions, to start a small conversation. I distracted myself doing schoolwork in his room whenever he ate, played with his toys, talked to himself, looked at his photo albums.

Sometimes I wished he would forget me the next day, so when I came to his room, I would be an absolutely new person to him. Sometimes, whenever I cleaned his room, I would keep his photo albums away from his reach, but eventually he'd find them and read them.

**_You don't want to be Piper McLean._ **

I don't want to be _his_ Piper McLean.

(a female voice in the background, a plate being placed down on the table.)

**_Did you confront him about this?_ **

Several times. The first time, though, was a Saturday morning. I was in fairly good spirits; I greeted everyone inside the apartment complex, ran errands for the landlady, free of charge, though partly to get a discount for the rent payment. I came late to Leo's apartment. He was fiddling with his fingers, looking nervous. He looked up from his feet when I entered, and he stood up. "Lizzy, can we go out?"

Something was clearly bothering him. We went out to the backyard gardens. He wore his overalls, freshly laundered, and he sprawled out on the grass, watching the blue, sunless sky. I sat near him with my schoolwork, going through my notes and my phone's playlists, one of my earphones plugged to the device. Leo rolled on his stomach, crawled to me and placed his chin on my lap, looking down on the book and the sticky notes that I put in various places. He was a like a lost puppy, tired, looking for comfort from his master.

The gesture was too intimate for me. The way that he acted like a child sometimes endeared me, but he was an adult, a man around his fifties, forties at least. Anyone could look at us and probably mistake this relationship as something else, a May-December romance that's always looked down upon by society and everyone else, unless I'm thirty. Everyone seems to conceive every relationship that is not family-related as romance, or will lead to it.

No one was around though, maybe the landlady was looking at us through the window, but I let Leo play with the pages of the book quietly. He looked confused. He was bothered with something, but he wouldn't tell me. He half-distracted me in studying my notes. And, I don't know, I mentioned that he was like a puppy, right? Because I found myself ruffling his hair. He liked it, and he started to fall asleep quietly.

I cleared my throat. "Mr. Valdez."

He opened his eyes, and sat up, shaking his head. "Sorry," he murmured. "And it's 'Leo'."

"I know." I smoothed my pants. My tone almost sounded cold, and Leo didn't like that. "I want to ask you something."

He nodded once. Maybe I was too straightforward. Maybe it was my tone or something. But he seemed afraid about my incoming query.

"Do I look like someone?"

He only stared at me, not showing any kind of expression. Then he shook his head. "I don't get it."

"Do I look like someone from your photo albums?" I said, more gently this time.

He shifted. "Y-yes...you mean...you're not you?"

"Leo." I closed my textbook. "I'm not her."

"I know you're not her. But you're her. You look like her. Ack." He held the side of his head, a pain expression on his face.

"But do you know the girl's name?"

"I...I don't know. My...my brain is spinning." He was now holding his head with both hands, and held his arms and we both stood up. I pushed him too far, I knew. Or maybe I triggered something in his brain, in his mind and memories.

"Lizzy, I'm dizzy," he said, but for a moment he grinned, somehow triumphant and amused by his choice of words. "Lizzy, dizzy, dizzy, Lizzy."

**_What about his friends? Ms. Levesque and Mr. Grace?_ **

Ah. It would be easier to get some answers from them, but the problem was me. I was too afraid to ask them anything, because there was a big chance that they were going to tell it to me straightforwardly. No hesitation, and all that. I had a feeling that they would tell me everything.

As much as I wanted to know some answers to me being Piper McLean's stunt double for Leo Valdez, I was scared to know the truth.

I'm sorry, this is supposed to be an interview. You're looking for facts, not my opinion or my feelings.

**_No, please, tell me everything. This is your point-of-view, your side of the story. I want to know what you think is the truth. Who did you confront first?_ **

Miss Levesque. I was comfortable with her, and knew her better than her other companion, Jason Grace, who seemed to keep his distance from me. Maybe he really didn't mean it, but he rarely talked to me directly.

I sneaked a photo album out of Leo's room one day, when she was down in the lounge talking to the landlady. She saw me, invited me to seat with her and have coffee, if I had time and I wasn't too busy with anything else. Then she eyed the album tucked in my arms, and her smile dropped, slightly.

We exchanged a few pleasantries, ask about how we were, before she finally asked about the album. I didn't sit down, even though she kept insisting. I opened the book and laid it down on the table, and flipped to the page where the picture of the girl was prominent.

Ms. Levesque's lips were a straight line. She wanted to explain, but she waited for me, waited for a cue.

"Who is she?" I asked.

"Piper McLean," she answered. "A friend of ours. She died, almost thirty years ago."

I nodded. I kept looking at her, expecting for more. She was hesitant to speak up. "A lot of our friends died when we were your age."

"Why did they die?"

She bit her lip. "It's a...very long story. You wouldn't believe it."

"I have time."

"Sit down, Liz."

I sat down besides her.

She told me the whole story. She told me these...camps. Camps they were sent when they were kids. She told me about these superpowered beings that were offspring of the gods, of the Greek and Roman gods. That she, Jason, her friends, and Leo, were demigods, and each of them had special powers. And there were more, so much more, in America and abroad, and it wasn't just the Greek and Roman. They were sent to this camps to safety, and so they could train for the monsters that would come for them eventually.

Piper McLean was the daughter of Tristan McLean and Aphrodite. She was born with a Cherokee ancestry, and lived in California with her father, who was a Hollywood star. She was dyslexic and had ADHD. She was enrolled to numerous state schools, because she was privileged. But in every school, she caused trouble, one way or another. Then she was transferred to Wilderness School, then and there starting her journey and discovery as a demigod.

She told me how Leo and Piper and met. She told me their story until the point Piper died. They grew close at the late course of their quest. Her death affected Leo greatly, more than anyone else, more than her boyfriend. He puts the blame on her death and had not stopped thinking about her.

Four of Hazel's friends died. Hazel's boyfriend, Frank Zhang, and Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase. And then Piper McLean. And far away, more of their friends were killed, in a war that they couldn't stop.

It was just Hazel, Jason, and Leo in the end.

"Leo's Alzheimer's...isn't natural," she said. "Then again, all diseases aren't natural."

"What do you mean?"

"Leo is the most intelligent human being I have ever met. You should see his inventions, creations, when he was young. Maybe not the cleverest, but still." She laughed. Then her smile dropped and she looked solemn. "During our quest, Leo developed a disease that we couldn't pin out what. It was mysterious, and affected his health, his heart."

She smoothed her skirt. "He loved Piper. And maybe she loved him back. I don't know what kind of relationship they had with each other. It was mystery to all of us, even to me, even to Piper's boyfriend. We never saw them talk or hang out with each other, but they were close, more or less. When she died, he wanted to forget her, but she haunted his mind. It almost drove him insane. Maybe something _was_ driving him to insanity; a powerful invisible force, a ghost or a monster, I didn't know, and it wasn't all his work.

"He spent his time by himself, studying, reading everything he could get his hands on, from politics to philosophy, to romance novels." I couldn't help but smile at that. "He build prototypes, brought them to Olympus, showcased them. I didn't know what went through his mind. He was a good actor, Leo I mean. He ate and sleep, laughed and cried with us, but he was distant.

"'Insanity is simply a mental health problem, among a thousand more,' he said, in one of our last proper conversations I had with him. 'But I don't want to go there. I don't want to end up in a mental institution,' he laughed. 'I'd rather forget everything, rather than remember everything, and carry them on my shoulders my whole life.'

"A few days later, he was starting to forget the names of his friends, the countries he had traveled with us, the places where he grew up, and even his own mother's name. It was then, we realized too late, he was burning his own brain cells."

Miss Levesque's coffee was already cold. I didn't realize that my hands were on my mouth, and there were tears running down my cheeks.

**_I...I don't know what to say. Are you saying he...he_ inflicted _his disease on himself?_**

I don't know if it's intended. We never knew. But it was clear to me that I really didn't know who Leo Valdez is, before he tried to wipe his mind clean in attempt to forget Piper McLean. The one I had met was someone who was lost in his mind, trying to find a place here in the world.

Something clearly was haunting him. Or was it pure coincidence that, even though he had successfully erased most of his memories, I would meet him, looking exactly like the girl who died many, many years ago, taking care of him when his friends were not around, who triggered his mind into remembering everything again, who started to ghost his dreams?

I asked Ms. Levesque, "Who am I?" And I almost wanted to say, "What am I doing to Leo?"

"I can't be sure, Liz." Ms. Levesque smiled. "You are your own self, that I am quite sure. To Leo Valdez, though, you are Piper McLean to his mind, Liz Booker to his lips and eyes. When you die, you have a choice of being reincarnated or go to Elysium. She may have reincarnated, and here you are.

"We're trying to figure out what was it that disturbed him all these years." She handed back to me the photo album. "Can you do us a favor and...stick with him for now? Entertain him. Until we could smooth all the things we couldn't understand. I'm sorry, Liz, that you have to know all of this. I know it's hard to believe, and it's okay if you don't believe it. But it's the truth."

**_And what about you and Leo Valdez?_ **

I couldn't look at him the same way, but I still went up to his apartment everyday, to check up on him, talk to him a bit. I didn't see him much, and not because I didn't want to see him or talk to him, but because college was keeping me back, and all the part-time jobs I had to juggle to and fro.

I was a vital part of his everyday life. It was normal, it went like this, until the last two months I was with him.

**_Can you tell me what happened in the last two months you were together?_ **

Leo was better. I know, it's hard to believe an Alzheimer patient is actually getting better. But he was. He could read again, talked to me and started asking me about my school and all the jobs I took. He talked in simple ways, but he completed sentences. Sometimes he started all our small conversations. No one would believe me, but I think he was healing himself. But I couldn't get used to him...getting better. A part of me was afraid that if he continued to get better, I would know the real Leo Valdez. And for some reason, I was not ready to meet him.

I went up to his room one evening to say goodnight to him, because I didn't see him that morning. When I entered his room he was drawing something on a piece of bond paper, seated on a chair and elbows on the table. He looked up from his work and waved at me.

"Hey there, Picasso," I greeted, moving to his side. "What do you have there?"

He took his drawing from the table and showed it to me. It was crayon drawing of a giant yellow ship floating in the night sky.

"I dreamed about this last night," he said, grinning to me. "I don't want to forget it."

"Maybe if you sleep you'll dream of your ship again." I tousled his curly hair. "I'm going to bed now. I have a lot of things to do when I wake up. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

His grin quickly disappeared, and he suddenly looked panicked. He grabbed my arm. "No, please, don't leave me yet. I'm scared."

I took his hand and held it tightly. "Why are you scared? What's scaring you?"

"Someone's following me, watching me." His voice shook, and his eyes were wide. "When you're not here, someone keeps knocking on my door, everyday and when I open the door, they say things I can't understand."

"Maybe it's just your friends. Remember Hazel and Jason?"

"It's not them, it's not them." He shook his head frantically. "You can't see what I see, Liz. But they look at me like they want to hurt me." He released my hand and held his head. "Or maybe they're not really going to hurt me. I think I'm going crazy."

I was ready to reassure him, to tell him that it would be okay, but I remembered the secret he told me months ago, and then the whole truth Ms. Levesque revealed to me. When I pieced all of these things together, I started shaking a bit. I don't know what's more scary, Mr. Jackson; to see the monsters around you, aware of their presence, or aware of the monsters around you, but you can't see them. I was protective of Leo, but I was powerless.

I put Leo to bed, telling him that everything would be okay. I stayed at his side, and he told me more of his dreams, until he drifted off to sleep.

All the day's work had weighed down on me, and I swore that I was the most exhausted woman in the world. I didn't know who this monster that Leo told me. Maybe they never existed, and it was all in his imagination. What Hazel had told me never fully sunk in my mind until that time, and while Leo's case was plausible, I was prepared not to believe in most of them, but now I was. And I was not ready to see the monster that haunted Leo everyday, not at that hour. I locked the door of Leo's apartment, draped a blanket on him, and slept by the table, taking a chair and a pillow with me. I prayed that he would remember me when he woke up, because I didn't want to be kicked out of his apartment.

**_Did you take action?_ **

In the morning, I brought Leo down with me for breakfast. We ate in the kitchen, When all the tenants had left the lounge to go to work or back to their apartments, I told the landlady that someone had been going up to the top floor of the apartment complex, disturbing Leo. She was determined to find out who, and we asked Leo what they looked like, and if they were living here. He wasn't exactly helpful, because his memory of the person was blurry, but he promised us that if he remembered, he would tell us.

When I told Ms. Levesque about this, she and Mr. Grace visited more often in a week, checking up on him, still watching from afar, but sometimes interacting with him, if necessary. They made time for him, and wanted to look out for him. They couldn't ask him about what he saw, and they couldn't tell him that he should fight back if they came back for him again.

When I was with Leo, sometimes he was scared, and sometimes he was protective of me. He glared at the tenants of the complex during breakfast, sometimes gripping my wrist tightly. He was looking at too many people, it was hard to know which tenant was the one who visited Leo everyday to threaten him.

We tried to do everything we can, but we couldn't do much, because we had to be discreet.

But what happened next couldn't be stopped.

**_What happened?_ **

I left Leo's side for two separate occasions.

But that couldn't be helped. I had a life outside my duty of taking care of Leo. I had college, I had jobs to maintain. I have a family, and a baby brother coming soon, and I don't want to be a burden to my mother and father. I was eighteen, legally an adult. I have my interests, and I want to take a break sometimes, you know? I'm only human. My world does not revolve around Leo.

But of all the days were something had to happen, it was in the days I was not with him.

Leo attacked someone. I was at work, really late at night, so I couldn't see Leo in the evening. When I came home, one of our neighbors walked up to me with a bleeding nose and told me angrily what Leo had done to him. During dinner, Leo pounced on him across the table without warning, and everyone else had to pull him away from the man. He struggled like a dog with rabbies, the landlady said.

The tenant said he would call an institution and take Leo away from this place. "He has no place here. Either we take him to the hospital, or sedate him forever." I wanted to punch the guy.

I went up to Leo's room and saw Ms. Levesque and Mr. Grace with him. He was sitting on a chair, looking down at his hands. Ms. Levesque's hands were on his shoulders, and Mr. Grace was facing him, with hands on his hips.

"I thought it's him, I thought it's him," Leo murmured under his breath. His hands shook lightly, afraid. His eyes darted to me when I came inside, and he looked like he wanted to jump and hug me. But he sat there.

We waited for him to be calm, so we could get the story from his point of view. But Mr. Grace told him to go to bed and rest, and said we'll just talk to him tomorrow.

The next day Leo forgot everything that happened.

**_The second incident?_ **

During class, I received a phone call. My phone was on silent but I quickly excused myself from the classroom and went out.

It was the landlady, crying. She was calling because Leo was being hospitalized. He fell down the stairs from the top floor to the third floor. His head was bleeding, and there was a pool of blood when they found him.

I don't remember much what happened after that. I rushed to the hospital were Leo was being confined. I was crying, and I met Mr. Grace and Ms. Levesque near the operation room. Ms. Levesque was sitting down, her head was buried in her hands. Mr. Grace kept pounding his fist on the wall, looking like he wanted to scream, do more damage.

He saw me, and grabbed my shoulders, his tall figure looming on me. Mr. Grace, who distanced himself away from me, who never really talked to me, started to cry and placed his head on my shoulder. Ms. Levesque stood up and pulled him away from me. He wiped his tears away, gritting his teeth. He wouldn't look at me. Then he spoke. "We found him. We found the fucking bastard who started all of this."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really sorry for clogging the archive of Leo/Piper stories. I really am. This is, in a way, the "fourth" story of the Enlightenment Trilogy. The rest of the author's notes can be found in the [FFN](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2159773/) counterpart.


End file.
